


and if my wishes came true, it would've been you.

by phangirlingforphan



Series: Folklore Fics [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), dan and phil
Genre: 2020, Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reality, Songfic, break-up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phangirlingforphan/pseuds/phangirlingforphan
Summary: Phil can categorise his life in three acts: Before Dan, With Dan and now this new, uncertain one he’s calling After Dan.a reality break-up fic inspired by 'the 1' by Taylor Swift.
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: Folklore Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846780
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	and if my wishes came true, it would've been you.

He lets Dan have the Muse poster. Dan tells him he can take the Xbox, Phil used it more than he did anyway and besides, he gets the PlayStation 4.

It takes them four hours to divide everything up. Phil doesn’t use as much bubble wrap as he could on some of the fragile items and he honestly thinks it’s his subconscious telling him he doesn’t care if things get broken - it feels wrong taking them from this apartment in the first place.

This apartment, their apartment, now only Dan’s apartment and not his. 

Dan always liked this place more, he saw it in his eyes when they first viewed it that he thought it was great. Dan thought the quirky layout was cool and edgy. Phil said yes to it because God knows they needed to move  _ somewhere _ . He didn’t picture moving out of it as soon as this. Then again, he didn’t picture them breaking-up either. 

The last box is taped up and labelled ‘video props.’ He doesn’t have tears in his eyes when he takes it downstairs to the waiting removal van. He doesn’t get emotional when he posts the key through the letterbox after he locks the front door. He doesn’t look back when he walks down the road. 

He enjoys the time he spends with Martyn who helps him set his new place up. They spend a few hours making furniture and hanging old photos on new walls. Cornelia eventually comes to fetch Martyn for the dinner date they have planned. She has a quick tour of the flat and remarks how lovely the view over the park is, and then the front door shuts and that’s it. He’s alone. 

It’s the first time since they broke-up that Phil cries.

-

The break-up wasn’t destructive and Phil thinks that’s the problem. It’d be better if he hated Dan, resented him and never wanted to speak to him again. It was an amicable split. They grew apart, it stopped being romantic, they soon realised they’d become just friends and despite numerous attempts to reignite the spark they’d once had it was rendered futile. These things happen all the time in countless long-term relationships, it’s happened to lots of his friends and family so he can hardly say their break-up was one of a kind and soul-crushing - because it wasn’t. And he hates that.

“I guess you never know these things are going to happen,” Dan had said. 

They’d sat on the sofa in the apartment, hands clasped together, glasses of wine undrank, heads bowed and touching, sniffing back the tears they didn’t want to surrender to and trying to accept that this was it now. This was the end.

“We were really something, though, weren’t we?” Phil said quietly. “Once.”

Dan smiled at that. “We were, we really were,” he said, and he meant it. The smile faded slowly. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, Phil,”

“Me too, Dan, me too.” Phil said, voice shaky. He sniffed.   


And then together, they surrendered.

-

They don’t announce that they’ve broken up, they had never announced they were together so a video explaining that they’d been together after all and now split seemed fruitless, not to mention heartbreaking for the people who have supported them for years.

Phil does announce he’s moved out, though. A tweet seems the best way to do it, he knows if he does a video it’ll be transparent that he’s lying and lying to his viewers is the last thing he ever wants to do. A white lie, however, feels okay. 

**_@AmazingPhil. -_ ** **It’s the end of an era! Today @danielhowell and I went our separate ways and I have officially moved out. Will miss the fact he always bought pizza, will not miss being told off for eating cereal. But don’t worry! This isn’t goodbye for us, just a small change we’ve made.**

He deletes the Twitter app after he hits send. Social media detox might be a good idea for a while. At least, until he can face it again.

He’s about to put his phone down when he receives a text message:

**Dan: thank you for doing the tweet. i’m still sorry. i hope we can be okay soon.**

And that’s when he cries for the second time.

-

Phil can categorise his life in three acts: Before Dan, With Dan and now this new, uncertain one he’s calling After Dan. 

It’s the little things that he enjoys first. He enjoys being able to buy whatever he wants at a supermarket: the coffee Dan said was too bitter, the curry Dan argued would be too mild and boring, normal milk instead of oat and real meat instead of vegan substitutes. He saves money, it costs half of what they used to pay. 

The next thing he enjoys is being able to watch whatever he wants on Netflix without having to wait for Dan to watch the next episode of something. He can rewatch The Crown, watch as much Friends as he likes, sing to Mamma Mia and not be squawked at. 

Except, when he does put Friends on, he laughs at the jokes, sure, but he hasn’t got that person who used to laugh alongside him anymore. It’s just him, on a sofa for two, in a one-bed apartment with one toothbrush in the bathroom, one pair of shoes by the door and one mug of coffee to make every morning. Loneliness isn’t something he’s accustomed too, he’s never had to do this alone before, and now he is, he understands what they say about loneliness and how it can be absolutely suffocating.

-

He goes for a run one day. He’s clearing his wardrobe, unpacking a couple of boxes he’s procrastinated sorting out, and he sees that familiar pair of personalised Nikés he and Dan impulsively bought a few years ago that he’s used maybe once. Maybe now he’s alone he’ll feel less embarrassed to slip them on and go outside. He’s in a new area with people he’s never seen before, a park he overlooks but never walks in and a lot more time on his hands.

His feet pound the ground. Breathe in. Breathe Out. He surprises himself with how well he’s doing, perhaps that burst of fitness he and Dan did before their last tour changed his health for the better. He likes jogging past the trees, watching the Autumn leaves fall as he does, and he likes this area. The park is larger than the last one he lived near. 

He’s got Muse thrashing guitar in his ears when he decides he’ll do one last loop before going home.

It’s then that he glances at the bus stop opposite the park entrance.

It’s Dan: tall, wearing black, curled hair, soft jawed and dimpled. He rips an airpod out and stops automatically. His heart doesn’t quit thrumming loudly in his chest. Does he wave? Does he say hello? Does he ignore him? He can’t ignore him, that’d be rude. Breaking up in the first place was rude. No, he doesn’t mean that. Well, he kind of does. He loves him, fuck sake he still loves him. He has to see him, he has to say hello, he has to know if he’s feeling totally lost, too.

He starts to jog to the pavement to cross the road and then stops. It isn’t Dan. It isn’t Dan, he can’t say hello, he can’t talk to him, he can’t see how he is and he was a fool to think Dan would have ever been in this area, anyway. Why would Dan be here of all places in London? No, the question is why would Dan even want to speak to him?

When Phil gets home, he cries a little.

-

It’s been another month and he’s okay.

He’s doing good. He can’t quite fathom that he can say that.

The thing about living alone and being your own boss is that you decide what you say yes to, and without Dan to talk to he’s said yes a lot more.

Somehow, he presented a red-carpet event on behalf of Cineworld a week ago and spoke to Zac Efron.  _ The _ Zac Efron. 

He said yes to a sponsorship for Topman and now he has enough bright-coloured shirts to last him for years. 

Money isn’t a problem, they split the joint account when he moved out and so there’s a sizable chunk in an ISA waiting for him whenever he wants it one day. He made good money regardless of what he and Dan did and now he’s doing a few more brand partnerships he can squirrel it away for when those ideas he has in his head come into fruition.

Dan has only texted him once in the last month, simply to send him a photo of Norman, their fish, to say he was doing well. Phil replied with a simple:  **‘that’s good!’** and nothing more and it felt weirdly alright.

He kept running, he can do 5k in half an hour now and not feel like coughing up a lung. He kept buying the coffee Dan disliked and he would never go back to the old stuff. He watched The Crown again and cried just as much as he did the first time. It felt good to cry over something different. Last night, he watched four episodes of Friends and sprawled out on the sofa when he did because he could. 

He decides to go shopping in Central and buy himself a few bits for a holiday he has planned. His last sponsorship made him a decent amount, and he decided to pay for a holiday to New Zealand for him and his parents - just the three of them. He’s paid for First Class seats there and back and for a swish hotel to stay in with deluxe suites. They deserve it, he deserves it, but his parents deserve it the most. He couldn’t have gotten through this last month without phone calls to his Mum and advice from his Dad and ‘thank you’ never seemed enough.

“Phil?” someone says. It isn’t just someone. It’s Dan.

Dan looks gorgeous. Obviously. His hair is shorter, a little more tamed, wearing a tight fitting pair of skinny jeans and a black parka Phil hasn’t seen before. Phil nearly laughs out loud at himself then, as if Dan wouldn’t have bought clothes since they broke up.

“Hi, Dan,” he says. He goes for a handshake when Dan goes for a hug and they end up awkwardly slapping each other on the shoulder.

Dan snorts. “Well, that was something,” 

“I think that went as well as could be expected for us,” Phil remarks.

“Very true,” Dan says, “How are you?”

“I’m...okay,” Phil settles for. Okay is good. Okay says, not fantastic but not crying over you every night anymore. “You?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Dan says. Phil’s glad.

There’s a beat of silence where Phil isn’t sure where this is going to go. Maybe this is all they are now, past friends who say hello on the street and walk away. He never wanted this.

“Did you want to get a coffee?” Dan asks, jerking his thumb towards the Starbucks a few shops away from them.

Not really. “Sure, why not.”

-

The warmth as they step in is wonderful, and the smell of coffee is heaven. They used to come here all the time, their table is the one by the window in the corner. Phil remembers numerous afternoons sat in here, laughing, eating too many pastries and putting their feet-up as if they owned the place.

“I’ll buy,” Dan says, heading to the counter. “Caramel latte?” 

“I’ll just have a white coffee, actually, thank you,” Phil says. 

Dan raises an eyebrow but orders.

They settle into seats at a table they never used to sit at and shrug off their coats.

“Fucking hell, Phil, have you been at the gym?” Dan asks a little incredulously,

“Oh,” Phil blushes. “No, I go running every day pretty much. I guess it pays off?”

“Nice,” Dan says. “I never thought you enjoyed running. You never used to come with me.”

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “I like it now.” He pretends he doesn’t see Dan’s eyes narrow.

“What have you been up to, anyway? I saw you did that premiere a while back?”

“I’ve done a few things, I did that premiere as you say, and I’ve had a few new brand partnerships that have gone surprisingly well. It’s been good.”

Dan smiles widely, dimples and all. “I’m really glad, Phil, really glad. I’ve done a couple of videos but I’m working on scripts and other things still as you probably remember,”

“Of course I remember,”

“Yeah, so that’s all in the pipeline. How’s the flat?”

Phil can’t decide if this is going well or if it’s horribly awkward. He’s erring towards the latter, but how Dan could have anticipated this going any other way is beyond him. 

“It’s roomy, that’s for sure, but I like it, I’m slowly making it my own. I’m looking at buying a house, though, somewhere I can do up and paint and everything,” Phil admits.

Dan looks surprised. “Oh wow, that’s...that’s really impressive, Phil,”

“Thanks, I just think I’m 33, you know? I want to buy somewhere, do something with it while I have creative control,” It’s not a dig at Dan. It sort of is, but he doesn’t intend it to be. 

“I see,” Dan says, suddenly tight-lipped. “Well, that’s nice.”

“How about you, though? Reckon you’ll stay in the apartment for a lot longer?”

“Maybe, I always really liked it. I can’t imagine living anywhere else, yet,”

“You get used to it,”

“I guess so.”

There’s a silence again. Phil takes a large sip of his coffee, figuring the sooner he finishes it the sooner he can go, and watches as Dan glances at something on his phone.

This is bizarre. Honestly? Phil hates it. Once, they’d sit together for hours and talk. Once, there was never awkwardness. Once, they were in love.

“We were good together, weren’t we Dan?” 

Dan looks up instantly, eyes a little wider.

“Yeah, we were,” he says.

“And you weren’t unhappy, were you?”

“No, Phil I was never unhappy with you,” Dan says slowly, “We just...didn’t work anymore, right?”

“Right,” Phil says, nodding. “Break-ups are weird.”

Dan’s looking at him carefully, with worry in his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Phil chuckles. If Dan wants honesty, he’ll get it. “Yes, I’m fine, I’m only musing. We were really something once. Heck, we did world tours, we lived together for nearly ten years, and now here we sit, asking each other what we’re both up to because we just have no fucking idea anymore,”

“Tends to be how a break-up goes,” Dan mutters. 

“I didn’t think that’d ever be us,”

“And yet here we are,”

“Here we are.”

He doesn’t love Dan anymore, not really. He cares deeply, and Dan will always be in his heart right at the top but he can’t love him. If he loves him, he’ll never let go. If he never lets go, he’ll never be happy. 

Dan was all his penny wishes in a fountain, every shooting star, every 11:11 and his whole future until one day he wasn’t anymore.

“I’m still sorry, Phil,” Dan says quietly. “I didn’t want this.”

Phil exhales slowly. “I know you didn’t. I don’t resent you, Dan, I never could. I care too much about you. I miss you, definitely, and a part of me wishes there’d been something I could have done or that there was a way to fix this, fix us, but there isn’t so I can’t allow myself to dwell on any of those thoughts,”

“You still mean more to me than anybody in the whole world, and you always will. You know that, right?”

“I do, and likewise,”

Phil looks away when he sees Dan rub at his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Phil,” 

“Me too, Dan,”

“Maybe this was too soon,” Dan suggests ruefully. “Maybe we should do this again in a couple of weeks or a month? Maybe it’ll be easier.”

They won’t do this again. Phil doesn’t see this happening again at all. He doesn’t want to, in a way. He’s doing good, he’s looking after himself, he’s moving on and seeing Dan every once in a while isn’t about to make this easier.

They need to close the book on them both. He can’t yet. But they need to.

“Yeah, I’m sure we could,” Phil says.

-

Eventually, they get up and go. They stand outside, two people who used to be in love, still knee-deep in confusing feelings, who don’t know how to talk to each other anymore. How did this even happen?

“Okay, well, I’ll see you around, yeah?” Dan asks.

“Definitely,” Phil nods. “Take care of yourself, Dan.”

This time, they hug. It feels like closure.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that wasn't too sad. Taylor's new album is giving me LIFE and I know this will turn into a series of one-shots about the songs on the album. Please leave kudos if you enjoyed and check out my new chaptered fic called 'Love Will Remember' if you get the chance! Thanks! Lily.


End file.
